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Obamacare | The Government's Takeover of Health Care

Labor Unions, Employers Square Off Over Obamacare Costs

Labor union thugs blindly supported Obamacare. And why wouldn't they? After the 2009 phony stimulus bill that paid them back nearly $1 trillion for their support in the election, they felt that they were due another favor. The issue now, of course, is who is going to cover the costly Obamacare mandates: the employers or labor unions, whom supported the law and strongly advocated for it?

Disputes between unions and employers over paying for new costs associated with the Affordable Care Act are roiling labor talks nationwide.

Unions and employers are tussling over who will pick up the tab for new mandates, such as coverage for dependent children to age 26, as well as future costs, such as a tax on premium health plans starting in 2018. The question is poised to become a significant point of tension as tens of thousands of labor contracts covering millions of workers expire in the next several years, with ACA-related cost increases ranging from 5 percent to 12.5 percent in current talks.

In Philadelphia, disagreement over how much workers should contribute to such health-plan cost increases has stalled talks between the region's transit system and its main union representing 5,000 workers as they try to renegotiate a contract that expired in March.

Roughly 2,000 housekeepers, waiters and others at nine of 10 downtown Las Vegas casinos voted this month to go on strike June 1 if they don't reach agreements on a series of issues, the thorniest of which involve new ACA-related cost increases, according to the Unite Here union.

Flight attendants at Alaska Airlines voted down a tentative contract agreement with management in February, in part because it didn't provide enough protection against a possible surge in ACA-related costs, union members said. They are still without a new contract.

Labor experts on both sides say the law doesn't take into account that health benefits have been negotiated by employers and unions over decades, and that rewriting plans to meet new requirements can affect wages and other labor terms.

As with all things liberalism, figuring out who will pay is always the issue.